UCSF, neighbors tangle over eucalyptus

URBAN LANDSCAPE

Peter Fimrite

Updated 1:42 am, Saturday, March 2, 2013

UCSF plans to significantly thin out some of the eucalyptus trees that tower over Mount Sutro.

Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle

UCSF plans to significantly thin out some of the eucalyptus trees...

An orange dot marks a tree labeled hazardous on the Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve. UCSF owns the land, in the geographic center of S.F.
Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle

An orange dot marks a tree labeled hazardous on the Mount Sutro...

Above: Craig Dawson, executive director of the conservation group Sutro Stewards, says action must be taken to preserve the forest.
Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle

Above: Craig Dawson, executive director of the conservation group...

Left: A sign warns visitors not to walk on a meadow replanted on Mount Sutro by the group Sutro Stewards.
Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle

Left: A sign warns visitors not to walk on a meadow replanted on...

Orange dots mark trees that are considered hazardous in the UCSF Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve on Tuesday, February 26, 20123 in San Francisco, Calif. Dead or dying tress are considered hazardous if they pose the risk of falling onto people or other trees.
Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle

Orange dots mark trees that are considered hazardous in the UCSF...

This is one of the dead trees considered to be hazardous in the UCSF Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve on Tuesday, February 26, 20123 in San Francisco, Calif. Dead or dying tress are considered hazardous if they pose the risk of falling onto people or other trees.
Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle

This is one of the dead trees considered to be hazardous in the...

Evidence of one of the several past fires, a chard piece of bark, lays is shown in the UCSF Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve on Tuesday, February 26, 20123 in San Francisco, Calif.
Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle

Evidence of one of the several past fires, a chard piece of bark,...

Dead or dying eucalyptus tress stand above the English Ivy and Cape Ivy at the UCSF Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve on Tuesday, February 26, 20123 in San Francisco, Calif. The non-native ivy plants suffocate the understory of the eucalyptus and prevent regeneration. Eventually the trees die, splinter and fall.
Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle

Dead or dying eucalyptus tress stand above the English Ivy and Cape...

Eucalyptus, an unusually hyperactive tree revered by some and castigated by others for being dirty, hazardous, invasive and generally disagreeable, is causing havoc on a forested San Francisco hillside steeped in history.

UCSF wants to cut down an unspecified number - possibly more than half - of the 45,000 limb-dropping Australian trees, also known as Tasmanian blue gums, on Mount Sutro, but homeowners, hikers and other forest visitors are rising up against what they are calling a nefarious scheme.

The plan is to significantly thin out the dense tangle of trees, poison oak and English ivy that covers the 61-acre Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve, which is known to residents as Sutro Forest. UCSF owns the land behind its medical center on Parnassus Avenue and plans to reintroduce native plants and shrubs around the select eucalyptus trees that would remain.

The forest, in the geographic center of San Francisco, is not only unhealthy and infested with beetles, but a steady rain of falling limbs is dangerous to neighbors and their property, especially if the oily litter and underbrush ever caught fire, UCSF officials said.

"We are developing a management plan to keep the forest beautiful, accessible to the community, healthy as a forest and safe for our community and for our neighbors' homes," said Barbara Bagot-López, director of UCSF community relations.

Some members of the public aren't buying it, at least not judging from a hearing at UCSF this week to vet the university's draft environmental impact report. A parade of locals accused the university of, among other treacheries, planning to destroy an enchanted "cloud forest" in furtherance of "plant fascism."

"I just wish you would respect the forest as it is," said an impassioned Kevin King, who said he has been visiting Sutro Forest since he was a boy on a skateboard. "Its density is one of its beauties. We don't have places like that" in the city.

Others invoked famous naturalists John Muir and Aldo Leopold, who they insisted would disapprove. They also railed against university officials for allegedly contributing to global warming and herbicide pollution. The opponents also aimed a few barbs at local native plant advocates during the hearing, which is part of a 60-day comment period ending March 19.

Sutro's pleasure garden

Mount Sutro, which rises 904 feet above sea level, was once a rocky peak covered with coastal scrub. Adolph Sutro, a mining engineer who made a fortune in the Nevada silver mines, purchased what was then known as Mount Parnassus.

Sutro, who served as mayor and built the famous Cliff House and Sutro Gardens next to his oceanside mansion, began planting eucalyptus, Monterey pine and cypress on the mountain starting on Arbor Day 1886. His plan was to create a public pleasure garden around a Victorian castle, but he died in 1897 before realizing his vision. Two years before his death, he donated 13 acres to the UC Board of Regents.

The mountain and its hidden caves became the adopted home of Ishi, a Yahi Indian found starving and alone near Oroville (Butte County) in 1911. Ishi, the last known American Indian living in the wild in North America, spent the last five years of his life under the care of researchers at what is now UCSF.

The university, which over the years has purchased 90 acres and created the open space reserve, began developing the Mount Sutro management plan in 1998 after foresters pointed out the fire danger.

It is not an unusual situation. Blue gum trees, known scientifically as Eucalyptus globulus, are extremely hardy and wind resistant, which is why they were used in Golden Gate Park and the Presidio.

They have since established themselves as a dominant species in California, where many arborists and homeowners hate them for sucking up much of the available groundwater, shading out more desirable tree species, and littering the ground with flammable branches and bark. The trees, which grow up to 180 feet tall and can live for 300 years, grow back quickly when cut down.

Homeowners, utilities battle

Eucalyptus and other nonnative trees have increasingly found themselves at the center of intense battles, as homeowners, utilities and municipalities around the Bay Area try to remove them. One woman in Marin County was recently sued by neighbors and forced to remove a grove of eucalyptus trees on her property after arborists deemed them a hazard. Many San Franciscans are up in arms about city efforts to remove hundreds of nonnative trees in parks, on hillsides and along neighborhood streets.

Blue gum trees were blamed forspreading deadly flames during the East Bay hills fire in 1991, a catastrophe that UC officials are afraid could be duplicated on Mount Sutro. Their management plan, first published in 2001, is an attempt to deal with that issue.

Bagot-López said demonstration projects totaling 7.5 acres would be established on the south ridge, near Edgewood Avenue, on the north side of the summit and in the east bowl area, where foresters would test different restoration methods.

Forest density

The general idea, Bagot-López said, would be to clear 30 feet of space around the older, healthier trees and to reintroduce native plants and shrubs on the four plots. Herbicides would be tested on one acre of land riddled with poison oak. Goats would also be brought in to control weeds. The university would develop a comprehensive plan for the entire forest based on the findings, she said.

The public hysteria is largely fueled by claims that the university intends to clear cut 30,000 trees, Bagot-López said. Although the university has not given a number, the environmental report indicates that a maximum of 60 percent of the estimated 45,000 trees in the forest could be removed, or 27,000. The actual number will probably be much lower than that, she said.

Not everyone wants to save the eucalypti. One man at the hearing announced to the crowd how intensely he dislikes the trees, and a small but significant group of Bay Area residents have repeatedly expressed how they would like to see all blue gums chopped down and replaced by redwoods, which are native to the region.

Local conservationists who also support the tree pruning plan promise they will not support any plan to clear-cut Sutro Forest, but they insist something must be done to improve the grove's health.

"Just by clearing around trails, we have seen a resurgence of native plants in the area," said Craig Dawson, the executive director of Sutro Stewards, a grassroots volunteer organization devoted to maintaining the reserve. "The real bottom line to all of this is that you need management to ensure that we have a healthy forest. If you don't start now, you won't have anything left for future generations."